Note: The ECM Vampire Contest Sessions have been created to try to improve and extend the information here.

Vampires are well known throughout our world and the fantasy and horror genres as evil bloodsuckers, murderers and seductive undead humans, changed into this unliving form.

A vampire is created after a person is bitten by a vampire and their blood is drained. Other myths surrounding the changing from human to vampire include such details as drinking the blood of a vampire, or being born to a vampiric mother. In the fantasy genre, a vampire can be a member of any race. There are vampire humans, elves, gnomes - you name it.

Vampires are usually pale in appearance, as they cannot survive in sunlight (when they are exposed to sunlight, they will catch flame until they die or reach shadows within a short time). Vampires have fangs for their incisors, which give them their blood-sucking ability. The sucking of blood is a vampire's way of feeding, and usually has some restoring ability on them as well. Vampires always hunger for blood, but do not have to drink it. They can choose to suppress this hunger, or to drink blood from mice, cattle, or pets. Suppressing it for long periods of time requires a great deal of willpower however. Some vampires have been noted as having the ability to change into a bat or other similar creature of the night, and some can even take on a fog-like form.

Vampires have been said to have hypnotic abilities, which they mostly use to seduce victims - often of the gender they prefer. A vampire is difficult to kill or destroy in most stories, and are thought to be slain by piercing its heart (often with a wooden stake), or ripping out the heart. Garlic and crucifixes are sometimes said to have an averse effect on vampires. Holy water is thought to best affect vampires, as they are undead and considered a blight against the living.

2006-04-29[Saiyuki Nano]: i hate modern day vamps thay think their all that and thay think thay can beat anyone and anybodie.*gets a little angry* i was a elder vamp but i went into hideing.if you dont belive then dont.hay is their anyone hear a vampire?

2007-03-03[Commander Kang]: Not sure where I am supposed to post the info so I'll just shove it right here I guess. Another method of destroying vampires, though the accuracy of this I am uncertain of, is to immerse the vampire in running water such as a river (good luck getting him in there) and holding him under. The running water will "purify" and destroy a vampire. Whether or not this is actually the case I am unsure of. In addition, Vampires were well known in olden days to be among the most pretentious and arrogant of beings, claiming to be more clever and intellectual than most other creatures. Cunning if you will. It was known that vampires, if given a challenge of the mind such as a puzzle would, to a fault, fight to overcome it. I've heard of vampires who got themselves killed because of it. A particularly old legend was of a vampire who came upon someone in a field who was returning home from the taylor. She gave him the challenge to unravel a tangled yarn ball. The vampire accepted and picked at the stupid thing all night. It became so immersed in the puzzle that it failed to notice the dawn and died when the sun hit him. Again this may or may not be accurate as to vampires being subject to varying personalities. But a typical one is rather overconfident and most fancy themselves superior of intellect. I think this comes from the ones with an aristocratic background.

2007-03-03[Commander Kang]: Another interesting fact is that there once was a disease similar to vampirism... It was a deficiency of the blood that halted the production of hemagloben (I think. It may have been something else). I don't recall the disease's name. It was a hereditary bodily disorder actually. Those with it lost the ability to produce their own hemagloben around mid-age and their body was aware. So this resulted in a craving for what could supply the hemagloben the body needed. This meant of course, blood. A secondary effect was sensitive skin. In a way similar to how some people easily get sunburned. The deficiency caused a weakening of the skin in that respect and the melanin in the skin was reduced causing harsher punishment from the sunlight. Again I am not certain to the accuracy of this information. It is merely something I have come across in my own research with vampires in the past. I figured you all here might find it intriguing.

2007-03-03[Commander Kang]: Perhaps another intriguing fact about the vampire which again may stem from the aristocratic branch of their kine is that a vampire cannot enter a private abode without first asking and gaining honest permission from the owner or authority of the house or building. Public domain of course they can enter with impunity.

2007-03-10[xido]: Actually, Commander Kang... This info needs to be posted on the ECM Vampire Text page, so that it will be included as viable info. And like Angel said, cite your sources. See APA Formatting for info on referencing someone else.
-will

2007-07-05[Artsieladie]: This page needs some editing in regards to typos. Would anyone mind if I did this? :) I'm infatuated with the new left & right image/text & the tabling. I've been playing around with it. However, if you don't have enough text to fill "alongside" an image & you want to add another image &/or table, it seems to go up alongside where the text leaves off with the previous. My question is how do you place your next image or image/text or table below the previous? :PP

2007-07-06[xido]: I enjoy the new features as well. Please feel free to edit for information. We will also want to edit and include the information from ECM Vampire Text to help make this page a bit more helpful upon first view.

The first place image winner should also get a mention, I would think. Only 2nd and 3rd places have one currently. Will the ECM Vampire Photos also be featured here, when they are finished?

2007-08-27[SirKalon]: vampires prolific in many cultures from eastern cultures to west the celts had their tales and there is an old legend thats meant to be pre christ bout vampires origins roughly starting in deepest darkest africa and from those the true beginning of them, as to the posting by the elder vampire true many modern vamps are arrogant beings and think they are the pinnacle of their being in truth few are actually that young blood nowadays lack the abiliites but are getting stronger fast and some are becoming 'aware' and stronger upon their 'awakening' of any one is interested in anything i have to say please i encourage you to message me and give you my long prolific veiws research and knowledge of these creatures

2007-09-07[Hedda]: There is no big value in that. The important thing is that the pages are informative and good looking.

2007-09-21[xido]: It would be nice, but since the theme and mood of each creature is so different, it kind of helps to make each page unique to the creature.

2008-09-10[Linn Scarlett]: This reminds me of an essay I read of a Rumanian friend on all the different types of vampire-like mythical creatures native to Rumanian lore like the moroi and strigoi or vrykolak, but that none are really the vampire as we know it.